| Do you sell on eBay? If so, have you ever wondered | | | | finishes at 8pm. PST. That's 4am in Germany. Our |
| why some sellers seem to convert their auctions into | | | | poor German guy has only a few options: |
| sales more than others? Here's one reason why- | | | | - He can put in a bid and hope for the best. |
| Let me just start this article out by telling you what I | | | | - He can use an auction snipe tool and hope for the |
| am not: | | | | best. |
| - I'm not an internet marketing guru. | | | | - He can stay up half the night and get fired for |
| - I'm not an internet millionaire. | | | | being late the next day for work!The point I'm trying |
| - I'm not into multi-level marketing.I'm just a fairly | | | | to make is this. I figured out that the products I sell |
| ordinary guy - yet I make a steady top-up income | | | | appeal to both US and EC customers - but with |
| from eBay. Now that's not to say you can't make a | | | | some variations. Product A is is favoured by US |
| full-time living with eBay (you most certainly can!) but, | | | | customers, product B by EC customers. So I now |
| for me, I enjoy trading at my level. I do have several | | | | set my auction end time to fit in with a good timer |
| other revenue streams as well, so eBay has to fit in | | | | for them. That's usually when they have had time to |
| with those. | | | | get home from work, chilled out for a while and are |
| The thing is - I like to be good at what I do. So, | | | | feeling more like firing up their laptop. |
| when I started on eBay I looked at several different | | | | And do you know - it works. Since I adopted this |
| ways of optimising my sales. These included tried and | | | | simple strategy my auction failures - the ones that |
| tested methods such as selling quality goods, being | | | | didn't sell - have dropped to less than 2% of all my |
| honest with my prospective customers and just plain | | | | listings. That's a massive improvement for a little bit |
| playing fair. I'm in it for the long haul, you see. | | | | of thought, I'd say - wouldn't you agree? It doesn't |
| One thing that that came to my notice was the time | | | | stop with my simple model, though. |
| that auctions ended. There seemed to be no logic to | | | | Say you're selling computer games. What time would |
| it until I remembered that eBay is, of course, a | | | | you expect your customers to be attentive? Or |
| world-wide business and that people world-wide use | | | | maybe you're into collecting and sell rare stamps - |
| it. I'm talking time zones here. For the purposes of | | | | when would the best time be for that twopenny |
| this article I'm going to use two seriously big | | | | blue to end? Even if you have an eBay shop it is still |
| 'time-areas' - the USA and Western Europe. The time | | | | important; unless you have products as Buy-It-Now's |
| difference between the West Coast of the USA | | | | you still have the auction end time to consider. So |
| and, say, Germany is ten hours. That's a big span - | | | | when you next sell items, think of these points: |
| but what is the effect? | | | | WHO am I selling to? WHEN will they be at their |
| Simply, it means that when a German eBayer is | | | | computer? WHERE are they in the world? |
| getting ready for bed a San Franciscan has just | | | | Just three little points - but they can make a lot of |
| finished lunch. No inherent problem there - unless the | | | | difference to your success and the money you |
| German is waiting on an auction finishing that our | | | | make. Always consider them when listing your items |
| resident of San Francisco is running. Let's say it | | | | and just watch the difference to your results! |